he, "but don't pass them. He
talked incessantly," added the man, "the whole way, but in such bad
Italian that I could make nothing of it, and so I answered at random.
If I were tired of him, I fancy he was sick of me; and when he got out
yonder, and passed into the park, it was a relief to us both."

George was just turning away, when his eye caught a glimpse of the
glorious landscape beneath, on which a freshly risen sun was shedding
all its splendor. There are few scenes, even in Italy, more striking
than the Val d'Arno around Florence. The beautiful city itself, capped
with many a dome and tower, the gigantic castle of the Bargello, the
graceful arch of the Baptistery, the massive facade of the Pitti, all,
even to the lone tower on the hill where Galileo watched, rich in
their storied memories; while on the gentle slope of the mountain stood
hundreds of beauteous villas, whose very names are like spells to the
imagination, and the Dante, the Alfieri, the Boccaccio, vie in interest
with the sterner realities of the Medici, the Pazzi, the Salviati, and
the Strozzi. What a flood of memory pours over the mind, to think how
every orange-grove and terrace, how each clump of olives, or each
alley of cedars, have witnessed the most intense passions, or the most
glorious triumphs of man's intellect or ambition, and that every spot we
see has its own claim to immortality!

Not in such mood as this, however, did Onslow survey the scene. It was
in the rapt admiration of its picturesque beauty. The glittering river,
now seen and lost again, the waving tree-tops, the parterres of bright
flowers, the stately palaces, whose terraces were shadowed by the
magnolia, the oleander, and the fig, all made up a picture of rich and
beautiful effect, and he longed to throw himself on the deep grass and
gaze on it for hours. As he stood thus, unable to tear himself away, he
heard the sharp cracking of a postilion's whip immediately beneath him,
and, on looking down, saw two heavily laden travelling-carriages, which
all the power of eight horses to each could barely drag along against
the steep ascent. A mounted courier in advance proclaimed that the
travellers were persons of condition, and everything about the equipages
themselves indicated wealth and station. As Onslow knew all who moved
in a certain class in society, he was curious to see who was journeying
northward so early in the year, and, stepping into a little copse beside
the road,